Stephen Vincent Benet

Stephen Vincent Benet - Young People's Pride

Stephen Vincent Bene't (22 July 1898 - 13 March 1943) was from a family with roots in Florida, which explains the Spanish name. Although born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, his father was a colonel in the U. S. Army, and hence he grew up in California and Georgia. He attended Yale starting in 1915 and that same year published his first book of poems, `Five Men and Pompey'. `Young Adventure' (1918) is considered his first mature book of poetry, and he went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes, in 1929 for `John Brown's Body' and in 1944 for `Western Star'. It appears that the whole family had great talents, as his grandfather was a Brigadier General, his father a Colonel, and both Stephen and his brother William Rose Benet won Pulitzer Prizes for poetry.